Israel has attacked Gaza Flotilla (dead and wounded)

[Peter Presland]

Serious food for thought here. Careful restrained comment from inside NATO but the current - soto-voce - is unmistakable. Turkey IS a member of NATO and if NATO umms and ahhs about support for a member when that member's sovereign territory (as in law a ship in international waters is) is attacked, then the real rationale for the entire organisation is in question.

This thing has the potential to shake the Western Alliance and its drive towards effective single world government dominated by the US to its foundations.

Craig Murray again:

I was in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for over 20 years and a member of its senior management structure for six years, I served in five countries and took part in 13 formal international negotiations, including the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and a whole series of maritime boundary treaties. I headed the FCO section of a multidepartmental organisation monitoring the arms embargo on Iraq.
I am an instinctively friendly, open but unassuming person who always found it easy to get on with people, I think because I make fun of myself a lot. I have in consequence a great many friends among ex-colleagues in both British and foregin diplomatic services, security services and militaries.
I lost very few friends when I left the FCO over torture and rendition. In fact I seemed to gain several degrees of warmth with a great many acquantances still on the inside. And I have become known as a reliable outlet for grumbles, who as an ex-insider knows how to handle a discreet and unintercepted conversation.
What I was being told last night was very interesting indeed. NATO HQ in Brussels is today a very unhappy place. There is a strong understanding among the various national militaries that an attack by Israel on a NATO member flagged ship in international waters is an event to which NATO is obliged - legally obliged, as a matter of treaty - to react.
I must be plain - nobody wants or expects military action against Israel. But there is an uneasy recognition that in theory that ought to be on the table, and that NATO is obliged to do something robust to defend Turkey.
Mutual military support of each other is the entire raison d'etre of NATO. You must also remember that to the NATO military the freedom of the high seas guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is a vital alliance interest which officers have been conditioned to uphold their whole career.

That is why Turkey was extremely shrewd in reacting immediately to the Israeli attack by calling an emergency NATO meeting. It is why, after the appalling US reaction to the attack with its refusal to name Israel, President Obama has now made a point of phoning President Erdogan to condole.
But the unhappiness in NATO HQ runs much deeper than that, I spoke separately to two friends there, from two different nations. One of them said NATO HQ was "a very unhappy place". The other described the situation as "Tense - much more strained than at the invasion of Iraq".
Why? There is a tendency of outsiders to regard the senior workings of governments and international organisations as monolithic. In fact there are plenty of highly intelligent - and competitive - people and diverse interests involved.
There are already deep misgivings, especially amongst the military, over the Afghan mission. There is no sign of a diminution in Afghan resistance attacks and no evidence of a clear gameplan. The military are not stupid and they can see that the Karzai government is deeply corrupt and the Afghan "national" army comprised almost exclusively of tribal enemies of the Pashtuns.
You might be surprised by just how high in Nato scepticism runs at the line that in some way occupying Afghanistan helps protect the west, as opposed to stoking dangerous Islamic anger worldwide.
So this is what is causing frost and stress inside NATO. The organisation is tied up in a massive, expensive and ill-defined mission in Afghanistan that many whisper is counter-productive in terms of the alliance aim of mutual defence. Every European military is facing financial problems as a public deficit financing crisis sweeps the continent. The only glue holding the Afghan mission together is loyalty to and support for the United States.
But what kind of mutual support organisation is NATO when members must make decades long commitments, at huge expense and some loss of life, to support the Unted States, but cannot make even a gesture to support Turkey when Turkey is attacked by a non-member?
Even the Eastern Europeans have not been backing the US line on the Israeli attack. The atmosphere in NATO on the issue has been very much the US against the rest, with the US attitude inside NATO described to me by a senior NATO officer as "amazingly arrogant - they don't seem to think it matters what anybody else thinks".
Therefore what is troubling the hearts and souls of non-Americans in NATO HQ is this fundamental question. Is NATO genuinely a mutual defence organisation, or is it just an instrument to carry out US foreign policy? With its unthinking defence of Israel and military occupation of Afghanistan, is US foreign policy really defending Europe, or is it making the World less safe by causing Islamic militancy?
I leave the last word to one of the senior NATO officers - who incidentally is not British:
"Nobody but the Americans doubts the US position on the Gaza attack is wrong and insensitve. But everyone already quietly thought the same about wider American policy. This incident has allowed people to start saying that now privately to each other."

[Peter Presland]

Another indication of why this is so serious. I sense that, at the very least, it is a watershed event. There are now a whole bunch of cards way up in the air and slowly heading back to earth. I doubt the axis of deeply strained US/UK/NATO unity of purpose can survive their landing - and I also doubt the US has much left by way of influence over how they land.

Headline from Debka File

The war projected between Israel and the Iran-led bloc of Syria, Hizballah and Hamas is suddenly overshadowed by Turkish-Israeli hostilities over a deadly Israeli commando raid on an aid flotilla from Istanbul. Against the US president Barack Obama's bid to bridge the rift, Turkish generals are drawing up plans to break Israel's Gaza blockade and avenge 9 deaths, while Israel is bound by its war on terror to thwart them - bringing both to the brink of overt hostilities.

Overt hostilities means the unambiguous invocation of NATO article 5. Which must surely be an absolute priority for the US to try to prevent - or is it?

[Magda Hassan]

NATO was only ever meant to be a tool for the US to achieve its foreign policy ends. Sure, they would have come to the 'rescue' of Germany if the great Red hoards had invaded, like that was ever going to happen. Since the changes in the Eastern block NATO should have disbanded, as they had actually agreed to do so. NATO was never going to come to any members 'defence' unless it was in the US interest to do so. If this brings the end of NATO this will be the best news I've had in many a moon.

What role, if any, do you think Turkey playing (with Brazil) the go-between for Iran's nuclear material is in all this with both Israel choosing a Turkish ship to attack and the US piss weak response?

[Peter Presland]

NATO was only ever meant to be a tool for the US to achieve its foreign policy ends. Sure, they would have come to the 'rescue' of Germany if the great Red hoards had invaded, like that was ever going to happen. Since the changes in the Eastern block NATO should have disbanded, as they had actually agreed to do so. NATO was never going to come to any members 'defence' unless it was in the US interest to do so. If this brings the end of NATO this will be the best news I've had in many a moon.

I've got no issue with any of that.

What role, if any, do you think Turkey playing (with Brazil) the go-between for Iran's nuclear material is in all this with both Israel choosing a Turkish ship to attack and the US piss weak response?

There are major deep political forces in play; of that I've no doubt. What the game plans of the protagonists are is less clear; as is a precise delineation of the boundaries between them.

The over-arching objective of the US dominated NWO alliance is another matter though. That has not changed one iota and is summed up clearly enough in the PNAC phrase 'full spectrum dominance'.

I have little doubt that, if those forces judge that an Israel/Turkey conflict, sucking in Iran and Syria with a few nuclear detonations along the way, is what it will take to ensure that dominance, then that is what is likely to happen - as far as possible from the US 'Homeland' too - which is nice for them. Israel as ever, with its clear dominant influence on the US government (but what about it's military?) is something of a wild card though IMHO.

With the confluence of loads of other serious global issues to boot, I just don't see any good outcome to this personally. I'd like to, but right now I don't.

[Mark Stapleton]

I heard through Spanish media that only activists who agree to sign a statement (in what anguage, perhaps Hebrew, I don't know) saying that they have been treated well by the Israelis and that they agree not to make complaints or charges against the Israelis are being released.

I heard two different radio broadcasts yesterday claiming Aussie journalist Paul McGeogh was asked to sign a declaration that he had entered Israel illegally. His continued detention presumably indicates he refused to sign the statement.

Fellow Sydney Morning Herald employee, photographer Kate Geraghty, was reportedly tasered.

The Netanyahu Government won't survive this incident and its quite possible Israel won't either.

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...d-War.html
:puke:

[Mark Stapleton]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...d-War.html
:puke:

Fark. If guys like Oren speak for the Israeli mainstream, and I think to some extent he does, then they really do live in another world.

Decades of mollycoddling by mainly Western nations is coming home to roost. They've descended so deeply into deluded fantasy I doubt they can ever be rehabilitated.

btw, Obama's chickenshit 'denunciation' of Israel proves once and for all that Israel rules the US with an iron rod--as if it needed further proof. Even Australia had the guts to give Israel a serve.

Israel is America's lord and master. For now, at least.

[Peter Lemkin]

I'm listening to an Israeli spokesman....deputy director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry stumbling for words and explanations for what happened / how it happened. I think Israel has finally [decades too late] gone a tad too far for World Public Opinion not to notice the outright: illegalities, lies, over-reactions, lack of concern for human life [if not their own], breaking of International Laws, and more [make that less...]...this will long haunt Israel...and haunt it it should!!!! I wonder how they will react to the ship named Rachael Corrie, headed their way now!......the very name will give them pause.....as hardened as they are.....the eye of the world are on that ship and Israel!

[Helen Reyes]

Turkey was brought into NATO in order to guard the Black Sea, one of three of the USSR's outlets to Ocean, the others being the Baltic and Vladivostok/Khabarovsk on the Pacific. Turkey's presence in NATO was a strategic consideration, their history vis-a-vis Germany in World War II was on again/off again. It made internal sense for the Ataturk agenda of moving closer or joining the West. If TUrkey were subjected to the criteria the states in the NATO expansion waves were subject to--democratic government, established democratic institutions, respect for basic human rights and civil liberties--it couldn't have been a member in, say, 1997 or 2003, or whenever Poland joined, or the Baltic states. Turkey was further "defanged" during the Cuban Missile Crisis when Kennedy agreed to make Turkey off limits to nuclear missiles in exchange for Krushchev pulling missiles out of Cuba. Turkey was supposed to be some sort of bridge to CENTO and ultimately SEATO in the collective security alliance of alliances but these never really took off for various reasons.

If NATO members are still pretending they are anything more than a tool for US/UK hegemony, this incident is a kind of watershed, for them, at least. Of course Germany and Turkey have fairly deep ties because of the gastarbeiter phenomenon leading to cross-cultural understanding. Turkey's status has never been anything less than any other member's even if the considerations for Turkish membership were initially based on geopolitics rather than shared values. What Peter Presland's repost realyl hints at, but which isn't stated explicitly, is that Article 5 of NATO, invoked by the US after 9/11 to invade Afghanistan to depose the Taliban and capute al Qaeda, was invoked under false pretenses: the US did 9/11, and more and more people inside of NATO and out know this is the truth. This is the first time Article 5 was ever invoked, it is the second time (outside Yugoslavia and Kosovo) NATO has been deployed outside member-states and it is based on a lie by one of the member-states, supposedly the most important member, the US.

The other aspect is about control of the US. If Israel controls the US, and the US controls NATO, then Israel controls NATO. Doubtless some Israeli politicians would like to think this is true. Many US politicians would gallantly submit to Israeli rule and would place the treayt organization at Israel's disposal. The other members see it otherwise.

That leaves a block in NATO of everyone besides the US, and possibly Canada and the UK, at odds with the idea that NATO exists to serve Israel. In other words, all the EU countries, minus, possibly, Britain. So it falls to the EU to deal with thsi violation of the Geneva Convention, the UN Charter and the NATO charter. It's a deal-breaker. It divides NATO, it divides the UN and it could divide an already weakened EU.

Within the EU there is strong sentiment against Turkish membership. Turkey sees its future as inside Europe. There is a Muslim/Christian-Western Secular divide, there is a divide over immigration into the EU and there's a slight possibility of an Islamic divide, although the cards seem to be stacked toward Islamic cooperation against Israel.

Israel could only have made such a provocative move after consultations with the US and others, or if there was knowledge of an impending larger conflict. It's no accident it took place on Veterans' Day in the United States, just as Cast Lead took place around Christmas after CIA agent Obama-Soetoro was allegedly elected but not yet inaugurated. Then as now Obama-Soetoro failed to condemn Israel's gross violation of the norms of Western civilization.

[Keith Millea]

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/06/01-2

I'll refrain from personal commentary because when I'm pissed off I can't control my use of indecent language.

06.01.10 - 3:07 PM
Activist Loses Eye


An American activist lost an eye and sustained head injuries after being shot in the face with a tear gas canister while demonstrating in the West Bank against Israel's attack on the Gaza aid flotilla. Israeli troops fired the canister at close range at Emily Henochowicz, a 21-year-old art student in New York.

"They clearly saw us," said Sören Johanssen of the International Solidarity Movement. "They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession."